According to official statistics, one woman a month is killed in the UK by her family in the name of honour, usually because she has rejected or tried to escape from a forced marriage, or has found a partner to love of her own choosing. But campaigners suspect that the figures are much higher, with women being driven to kill themselves out of desperation, or murders being disguised to look like suicide.
Though honour killing is sometimes thought to be a Muslim problem, it occurs in many patriarchal communities around the world, including Hindu, Sikh and Christian too.
Presenter Shazia Khan, talks to three women, one of them in hiding in fear of her life, about why they have become targets of such rage and threatened violence. And how the very people who they would have hoped would protect them have turned on them.
For the women who have challenged their family’s expectations there is a life-long price to pay, they can never relax, ‘No Way Out’. This program airs as part of our international documentary exchange series, Global Perspectives: Escape!

Program Credits

No Way Out was presented by Shazia Khan of the BBC World Service, with studio production by Kate Howells. It airs as part of the special international documentary collaboration, Global Perspectives: Escape!

In Honor of Fadime: Murder and Shame by: Unni Wikan, Anna Paterson (Translator) 2008A heart breaking story of a Kurdish immigrant that only wanted to live the life of any young woman in her adopted home of Sweden but was murdered by her own father because of it.